She had no interest in leaving the house this morning. She would have rather stayed nestled on Grandpa's lap counting his money. I eventually convinced her to come outside for pictures which seemed to lift her spirits about school.
Lila was the last classmate to arrive. I have learned that dropping in all of the chaos on the first day just adds to the stress. There wasn't a tear to be found in her classroom of 14 kids. Once entering the classroom she was asking, "Hold you me, Mommy." That is her version of, "Hold me please." I asked her to find her name and hang her backpack up but she wasn't going to do it. She was also expected to find her name tag and put it in the attendance basket. She was rather annoyed by all of these requests and flicked the little die cut school house with her name on it on the ground. I then told her she had to be nice which resulted in her picking it up and placing it in the proper spot. I snuck out while she sat at the table with Mrs. Jones and a few other classmates to begin a pattern block activity. It was a day of no tears.
It is very hard to believe that I did this same walk with Savannah three years ago. Not only were my emotions running high due to sending my first child off to preschool but I was frazzled, new, NICU mom. I can't stress enough how lucky we are. Three years ago we were asking questions such as, "Will our girls walk and talk?" or "Is there a chance that our girls will go to a mainstream school?" I think Lila Grace is an amazing success story. She walked into school like any other typical child this morning. I don't think the parents would have any idea of her background. Of course the school staff knows as they were part of our support community when the girls were born. I had a tear in my eye when Mrs. Sweeney saw me walk Lila down the hallway. She exclaimed "I can't believe her turn has come. Look at her!" I agree, just look at my girl!!
